of all, he sounded childish. Proving Guaire right was the dread that forced Somhairle to press on. “. . . though, in your wisdom, I’m sure you understand how it might feel unsafe. Morien arriving, birds dropping out of the air around me . . .”
For the first time, Queen Catriona looked at Somhairle instead of the plants. Her attention was total, terrifying. It always had been.
Silver flashed in her stare, then disappeared with a langorous blink.
“Our young, wounded bird.” Catriona shared Somhairle’s blue eyes and fair complexion, but her features were hewn without sentiment. As a magical reflection, she looked almost ghoulish, as though she had silver bones and silver blood. His mother’s court took its name from the wealth of ore in the Hill’s bedrock, but sometimes, Somhairle thought she took her ornamentations too far. No other queen in their history had been so garish. “How we hoped that you, of all our children, might escape a life haunted by death. . . . Your beloved father was so lively.”
Somhairle’s father had gone questing to bring back an antidote for his twisted son. Before his child had had a chance to know him, he’d vanished.
This wasn’t unusual. Few of his half brothers had living fathers.
Sun winked off his brace, reminded Somhairle that he too had an unusual silver accessory. Instead of ceremonial crowns, the Ever-Bright smiths had wrought a series of strong, lightweight models fitted expertly to Somhairle’s growing height.
He hadn’t received a new one in a few years. But now wasn’t the time for that thought toward comfort, a base distraction.
“Then I may speak to Morien about the situation?” Somhairle asked gently.
While in name and birth he outranked the Last, both knew who held more power at court. Morien was the Queen’s arm; Somhairle, barely a ring to adorn her littlest finger.
Catriona’s eyes snapped back to attention. “The Last must not be disturbed.”
The blood drained from Somhairle’s face. He’d misjudged Catriona’s tenderness, employed to placate, perhaps nothing more. The bitter taste in his mouth stung his tongue.
He’d forgotten how quickly his mother’s mood could sour.
Catriona held up one graceful hand. “We would not see you honed like a blade toward purpose. Remain carefree, and we shall intervene on your behalf.”
It would push Somhairle’s luck to exaggerate the issues of his health, but that was his only weapon. He’d buried thirteen birds. His pride was nothing compared to their lost lives.
“You are gracious as ever.” Somhairle covered his mouth to cough, forcing a shaky smile.
It didn’t matter. Catriona was already gone. The mirror in front of Somhairle showed only a blurred stain, the Queen’s lingering profile like a cameo silhouette.
Outside the solarium, dressed as though he was waiting for his own audience with the queen, Faolan straightened quickly to prevent the door from opening directly into his nose. Morien was nowhere to be seen, an implication more powerful than physical presence.
“You look well!” Faolan said with the false cheer of Silver Court conversation, and also its lack of self-respect. The swell of a plum pearl drop dangled from one ear on a rose-gold chain, rather than a silver one—an intriguing, if minor, rebellion against the Queen’s favored metal. “Feeling better?”
“I am,” Somhairle agreed. “We’ve lost some of Ever-Land’s other residents, however.”
“Oh.” Faolan’s face flickered, was too steeped in court artifice to fall. “Yes. I heard about the birds.”
Somhairle wasn’t in the mood to be outright mocked—or worse, humored.
Alas, when Faolan fell into step beside him, his brace made graceful disengagement impossible.
“Forgive me, Your Royal Highness. Though it’s incredibly unlike me, it seems I’ve misspoken.” Faolan worried away at a wedge of salty white cheese Somhairle hadn’t noticed he’d been holding, eating the pieces that crumbled freely into his fingers. “I haven’t slept for days. Not that it’s any excuse, but I assure you, I wasn’t listening at keyholes. I waited for you outside the solarium because I bear glad tidings.”
“Oh?”
“I came to find you as soon as I heard,” Faolan explained. Acknowledging, without directly expressing, that he needed some excuse for being flattened against the door when Somhairle had exited. “You’ve seen the last of our friend Morien. At last, eh?”
It was early enough that the house was yet slumbering. They’d traveled through the main corridor, past two unoccupied guestrooms and a sitting area that cradled a dusty piano. Out of habit, Somhairle averted his gaze from the mirror in the entryway as he opened the front doors for Faolan. A warm breeze blew in with the scents